


The Stranger

by veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom



Category: Divergent - All Media Types, Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canonical Character Death, Character Derailment, Crack Relationships, Crack Treated Seriously, Excessive Molly Atwood sympathizing, Figure it out yourself kids, Gen, Headcanon, I wrote this in less than half an hour so don't examine it too closely, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Non-Canonical Character Death, One Shot, Out of Character, Weird Plot Shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 07:15:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12185415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom/pseuds/veryconfidentsandwichshapedfreedom
Summary: Three shots.With the gun, I fired three shots.





	The Stranger

Three shots.  
  
With the gun, I fired three shots.  
  
One was for Drew, the boy who died in my arms as a direct result of the stranger, his ice blue eyes wide with pure, unadulterated terror, his lips trembling as he gave one final declaration of love to his lost leader. Drew, the boy whom I knew nothing about except what he'd done to Edward and what Molly had told me about him after we fled together, but I still felt nothing but sympathy for, and loyalty to his name, his fate. Drew, the boy who sparked my realization that Edward had been replaced, the boy who I owe my own survival to, because if I had not left the stranger, I would have ended up just like Drew, dead and buried and forgotten.  
  
The second was for Molly, the girl who watched as everything she'd ever wanted collapsed around her for reasons she could not control, and who lost her only friends, one to circumstance and one to death. Molly, who stood by my side, who filled a hole, the one Edward left, that I never thought could be filled, who managed to keep the ice building in my heart thawed just a little longer than it ought to have been. Molly, who was shot and killed and died in my arms, too, the same way Drew had, her eyes glazed and empty but still seeming to hold her fading gaze steady with my own.  
  
The third was for me, and all the pain I suffered to get there. The life I gave up for Edward, only to watch him be snatched away in the night and replaced with the stranger. The grief that gripped my chest when I saw the life leaving Molly's limp body and the part of me that died alongside her, breaking what little emotion I had left that was not anger at what the stranger had done for Edward's reputation or something indescribable otherwise related to protecting Chicago from the stranger. The nights I spent running through the streets, through the trainyards, with Molly, away, away, further, further, from the past that haunted me, the one bright eye that loomed over thoughts which had once been pleasant like an impenetrable black wall of fog and death. The third shot was for everything the stranger had done.  
  
All three shots were for Chicago.  
  
When I saw the stranger collapse in a flurry of blood and screams and chaos, the darkness weighing down my mind lifted. He was going to die. It was over. I fled, as I had done time and time again. I may have hit someone else, left them wounded or even dead in the thick of the crowd. For that, I felt remorse, regret, that haunted me for the rest of my life.  
  
Thankfully, the rest of my life was not long.  
  
I had no purpose after that. The stranger was dead. The factionless could believe Edward died a martyr, struck down by an anonymous enemy in the heat of revolution, when his flame burned brightest. The city could believe what they wanted. They were safe from the stranger. They were safe from what the stranger did when he possessed Edward's body. They were safe, and I had saved them. It was over.  
  
Had Molly or Drew still been alive, still needed me to lead them as Peter had done all those years, I would not have fired the fourth shot. Had shooting the stranger brought Edward back, I would not have fired the fourth shot. Had Chicago still been in danger from the monster I created, I would not have fired the fourth shot.  
  
But I did.  
  
The fourth shot was fired in an empty alley, the screams swarming the streets merely a distant memory cloaked into obscurity by time and evening's falling light.  
  
The fourth shot was for everything I would no longer have had I decided to keep living, everything the stranger had taken from me.


End file.
